Taking It Back
by Hanakoheals
Summary: You never thought you'd feel this way again. After years of living in a dream you never thought you could have you cannot imagine what to do once she is gone. You cannot imagine living after her death. S/D...Serena Death


Author's Note: First, I would like to say that this one shot is based on a House fan fiction called **Metamorphosis**. It's almost exactly like it idea wise I think. I did, however write this whole story on my own so I thought I would post it. I know it's very ambiguous, but it's second person point of view. Maybe it can relate to you!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.

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You never thought one phone call could change your life forever. You thought it was just some stupid cliché. Guy is lonely, guy meets girl, guy and girl fall for each other, guy and girl get together, guy and girl are happy, guy is lonely because of tragedy. Cliché. Stuff like that never happens in reality.

But then one day as you go about living the life you worked so hard to obtain and even harder to keep, the phone rings.

You answer it just as you do any other time. This time is different, you soon realize.

Your heart nearly stops. It's the police. Right away you know something is wrong.

And, of course, something is.

The minute the officer relays the message you begin to shake. You have not felt like this in years. It can't be true. It has to be a joke, you think. It has to be a dream. You'll wake up from this, you think. You're only dreaming.

And then he says his parting words, and you monotonously thank him for informing you of what has happened. You don't mean it though. He doesn't seem sorry enough. He thinks it's some natural occurrence that happens everyday. That's all it is to him. Some sob story he heard and will hear over and over again.

But you, you're trembling as you shakily place the phone back into its receiver. Even though you've heard worse, even though worse has happened to you, yourself, the officer's words continue to play again and again in your mind.

_"There's been an accident…your wife didn't make it…"_

For awhile, it's the only thing you can think of, or at least, it's the only thing your mind will let you attempt to comprehend.

When the morrow comes you wake up and realize you are the only one lying in your bed. You turn. Your wife's spot is vacant, cold, and kept. She didn't come home last night, and once again that feeling of overwhelming dread washes over you. It is then that you allow yourself to believe that what you do not want to believe is indeed true. Your wife is dead…

***

It's her funeral, and all you want is to be allowed the right to cry and mourn for the lost of your deceased lover. Everyone around you is crying, and you realize how good of a woman your wife had been as flowers are placed atop her coffin. You want to drop to your knees and kiss her one last time before she is buried and taken away from you forever; you want to somehow show her that you'll miss her, but you can't. You must remain strong.

A little girl with pink hair and violet eyes clings to your side, hugging you with all her might. She is your daughter, the proof of the happiness your wife has given you. You gingerly pat her head and urge her to face her mother, but she does not want to. She does not want to see her mother being buried underneath her, and after various attempts to get her to change her mind, you let it go. You come to the conclusion that she thinks that if she doesn't see her mother being burried then her mother won't really not be coming back home with her. Because of this, you wish you can look away, too.

***

"Papa, please don't make me go! I'll be good I promise! Please let me stay with you!" your daughter cries as she clings to your leg in hopes of persuading you into allowing her to stay.

It has been a month since the death of your wife, and though you know you should probably begin to move on you find that you cannot, and because of this, you can barely take care of yourself let alone your daughter. Gently, you pick her up and set her down next to you so you can kneel down beside her and soothingly say, "It's for the best, Sweetheart, I promise to call you everyday. Plus, you'll have so much fun with Auntie Ray you won't even realize I'm not there."

You only succeed in upsetting her more, for now she stubbornly crosses her arms over her chest and yells, "But you won't be there!"

Your head drops. You know that ever since her mother died your daughter has barely left your side in fear of losing you, too. You begin to wonder why you decided to send her away in the first place, but then as you look around the bland, mess of a once lively house you remember. You can barely pay attention to anything around you. You do not want to be the cause of any harm to a daughter you are sadly and, until recently, unawaringly neglecting.

And then you feel her little hands touch your unshaven chin, and you look into those big violet eyes that always seem to haunt you. Her eyes...they look exactly like her mothers, and that scares you into looking away.

But then she taps your face again as she sniffles, and you avert your gaze back to her.

"Have I been bad, Papa?"

You almost want to cry at how meek and helpless she sounds with her head barely up and her doubtful eyes peering into yours. It saddens you to know, that a child at the age of three is being taken away her innocence. Too young, you think. And why your daughter? You pull her into a warm embrace and bury you nose into her thick untamed mane.

Vanilla...

She smells like vanilla...

You hug her closer.

She's going to grow up to be just like your wife, and that scares you even more.

"No, Baby, no you haven't." You finally mumble as you stroke her auburn locks.

You know she knows what you are feeling because she does not fight back. Instead, she quietly sniffles into your chest, as she silently cries with you.

With you because you can feel salty drops of water run down your face and fall to the cold ground. You're crying, you realize. For the first time ever, you are crying for your loss: the loss of your life, the loss of your happiness, the loss of your sweet, beloved wife.

And your daughter knows this too, for she silently allows more tears to fall with yours and whispers, "Mama..."

***

You can't stop thinking about the look on your daughter's face when your sister picked her up to take her to your parents' house. You had expected the hurt. You had even given yourself a full hour to prep for it.

What you didn't expect, however, was the look of complete trust she held for you. The look of hope in her eyes was relieving to you. It almost reassured you that things may turn out better than you had expected, that maybe she would not grow up to be as damaged as you initially thought.

But then again, it was the same look that your wife had ceaselessly dedicated to you each day of your life together.

Your wife, herself, was damaged.

She had been a beautiful woman. Her hair was thick yet tamed and long with a vibrant golden hue, and her skin was forever creamy and soft. She had many friends and had rarely left the house without a smile graced upon her face. You could tell that she loved her life. She was a people person.

So when she took an interest in you, you brushed her off thinking that she would give up on you and bestow her innocently naive personality upon a man of more charm. You figured she would easily grow frustrated with a misanthropist such as yourself.

But she did not give up on you. Infact, she seemed to have grown more infatuated with you every time you added bricks to your already mile high wall which separated you from the rest of the world. And you have to admit, you thought about her from the very beginning. She wasn't someone you actually wanted to get rid of, but you did think you could get rid of her anyway.

And then she did something completely out of her character. She glared at you and said the most...blunt thing you think she could say.

_"Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself. Stop sitting on that imaginary, who knows HOW high pedestal you put yourself on looking down on everyone else. You think you're better than us just because you've been through shit? Well guess what? Others have, too. You might actually see that if you stopped being such an arrogant jackass."_

All you could do was blink as she jumped out of her seat and stormed out of the arcade. She left you baffled, but as you sipped your cup of coffee your eyes darken in wonder. What had gotten her in a bunch? And how dare she!

How dare she speak to you in such a way. She didn't know what it was like losing your family when you were young. She didn't know what it was like not even remembering who you were in the beginning. She didn't know what it was like being put through foster care after foster care only to be thrown out on the streets when people could not take care of you anymore. She didn't know what being lonely was. She didn't know what struggle meant. So how dare she.

You were filled with so much anger that when you saw her next you made it a point to make her cry with hurtful taunts. Her eyes were already glossy and red from tears but you did not care. All you wanted to do was make her hurt the way she made you hurt. You wanted her to feel the pain you had felt your whole entire life. You succeeded. Once again she got up from her seat and left.

But not before dropping a star locket.

The next time you saw her she made it a point to ignore you, but you silently held out her locket hoping that would be enough of an apology. You remember how she gently cradled it in her hands and gazed it with saddened eyes. She didn't say anything for the longest time nor did she look at you. But then she smiled, and that shocked you. You had never seen a bittersweet smile adorn her innocent face before.

"_I was adopted."_

You remember the jolt of electricity you felt run down your spine as she confessed what seemed to be her biggest kept secret.

"_I didn't even know what it meant to be adopted when my parents told me, but when I got older and finally figured it out I wondered 'Why did they give me away? Was I not good enough? Was I an ugly baby?' I couldn't speak to anyone because I wanted to know who I really was. I didn't care about this 'Serene Tsukino's' life anyone. I wanted to know what MY life was. Eventually I became so obsessed with wanting to know what I should have been that I completely alienated myself from friends and family. I screwed up my life by not going to school, and when I finally got with the program I was depressed because everything I had before seemed to have been..taken away from me. All because I obsessed over what I wish I knew."_

She turned to you then with determined eyes and the locket squeezed tighter in her hand.

"_My mother was never one to baby me when I was hurt. Instead she told me, 'If something was taken from you then take it back.' I was angry because I wanted comfort not one of her stupid lectures, but after awhile those words kept playing in my mind. Because of those words I never let anything phase me the way it did before. I want to be happy. I want to make people smile. I want to make grinches like you smile."_

You didn't know why she was trembling at this point, but you did know you were overwhelmed with the desire to hold and comfort her.

"_But then I got this stupid locket. My mom says it's from my birth mother. She says my biological birth mom wanted me to have this when I turned 18 because it was a tradition in her family or something. And now I'm so angry because I didn't care who she was before. But now obviously she cares for me right? Or did? Other wise she wouldn't have sent this, right? And then last night I figured it out. She's buying my love. This…thing…is just her form of an apology, and I don't think I want to accept it."_

You told her to keep the locket. It was beautiful. It was a part of her even though she did not want it. She smiled at you again after awhile and took the locket to clip around her neck. That was the first time you realized how beautiful was. When she smiled at you with read eyes wondering who she was. She was damaged, but god, was she beautiful.

She had never broken down like that with you again. Instead she smiled and chatted along with everyone around her like she was once again naive and innocent, but this time you understood. She had 'taken it back.' She was a strong woman. A woman you wanted in your life. Forever.

Marriage was bliss. Her smile alone got rid of any loneliness you ever felt, and when Rini was born you felt that life could not have gotten anymore perfect.

And now she is gone.

***

Today is a new day. Today you want to look through pictures of your family and relive every detail of your life with your beloved wife. Today you want to cry while staring at the first picture you and your wife took nearly ten years ago.

But today you find a locket, and today you hear her melodic voice whisper into your ear, _"Take it back, Darien."_

That bittersweet smile is now yours.

Today you take your daughter back from your sister's house. Today you give your daughter the biggest hug she's ever received. Today you remember your wide. Today you take back your happiness.

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AN: Sloppy ending I know, but this file has been sitting in my...computer for nearly a year I had to post it. What'd you think? Not too bad I hope. And like I said, This idea isn't completely mine!

3 PrettyHanako


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